Facebook users continue to grow amid scandals

Social media giant Facebook’s users have continued to rise despite a series of data privacy scandals and criticism over its attempt to shutdown toxic content.

Facebook said the number of people who logged into its site at least once a month jumped 9% last year to 2.32 billion people.

The scandals also has no effect to its advertisement revenues and even recorded an 30% up compared last year.

The rise came despite campaigns which urged people to boycott the tech giant.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg said the firm had “fundamentally changed how we run the company to focus on the biggest social issues”.

The strong financial performance comes amid continuing concerns over how the social media firm handles users’ personal data and privacy after the Cambridge Analytica data sharing mess and fears the network has been utilized as a political tool.

The company’s shares have lost almost a third of their value since July when it warned about slowing revenue growth and they remain near a two-year low.

But they jumped over 9% in after-hours trading after profit and revenue beat analyst forecasts.

Facebook’s total profit for 2018 was $22.1bn (£16.9bn), up 39% on 2017.

User growth was particularly strong in India, Indonesia and the Philippines, but flat in the US and Canada.